Friday, October 30, 2009

Let's call this an OPEN COMMENT POST. I certainly have my opinion on the impact President Obama has had, but I want to know what you think, behind your votes. I especially want to hear from folks who said they did not care. Let them comments rip!!!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I don’t know how many black NFL players/professional soccer players are also married to white women, but the title of this post speaks to the perception and greater probability of this happening with world-class black male athletes. But why? Is it because these exceptional men are self-haters? I think not. Could there be something about these woman that draws these men to them, and vice-versa? Perhaps, but it is likely not their skin color, per se.

On all the planet, a few things are sure when it comes to human differentiation. The fastest and most agile men come from West African ancestry, and their skin is black. And the most varied women come from European ancestry, and they are white. The hair of these women is near-black with eyes that are brown, dominant traits in humans, but that same hair is also brown, red, and blond, with skin tones to match. Beyond their standard brown eyes we find blue, hazel, or green. Objectively, this makes them the most attractive women on the planet, by virtue of 16 possible hair/eye color combinations versus one for everyone else. This is perhaps the most startling, but not the only, example of a species employing color as a competitive aid to sexual selection.

So while women are instinctively attracted to men with superior physiques capable of running at lightning speed, over and through competitors, these men, influenced by instinct as well, are attracted to variation that flourished many thousands of years ago in Europe, when the “operational sex ratio” (OSR) of males to females was such that competition for limited mates helped hair/eye color variation to literally explode into humanity. The ‘fever’ of interracial attraction has origins in how all men and women have been attracting each other since the beginning, and not just since it was forbidden by laws, in recent times, across skin-color lines.

To keep this in perspective, interracial dating and marriage, while on the rise, still makes up a pittance against the norm. In general, people confine themselves to mates who look like themselves. Society reinforces this, as is evidenced by the complaining blog comments I see from all sides. However, if you are either the fastest man, or the most attractive woman, who then makes the rules for who can be your mate? The slow? The plain? The status quo? No one is saying that speed/agility exist only in West African ancestry, or that beauty does not live well beyond the women of Europe, but there is a lot to learn from the evolutionary science of attraction, if we can put our predispositions aside for a moment.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Men and women are biologically pre-disposed to procreate, and to select mates on an innate and objective basis of increasing the odds of continuing the species. Synchronous male female attraction is the manifestation of this genetic programming. We look for the signals of greater health in potential mates, understanding that this comes most readily in youthful displays, including hair length and hair quality.

The association between hair length/quality and better health is a researched finding (exampled here). Regardless of ethnicity, average hair length decreases as age increases. Reproductive health follows overall health, and its correlation to youth, hair length and quality. Hair quality exists on a continuum of states reduced by chemical ‘processing’ straightening, heating, coloring or other visually enhancing, but also structurally distressing, procedures.

The history of American black women and their hair is one of social and biological misdirection. Black women, as varying admixtures of African and European ancestry, alter their hair in the attempt to have it appear longer and in a form similar to non-black (Euro-Asian) women, but in doing so they compromise both their hair’s quality and length. Chemical straightening (perming), frequent heat treatments (pressing), and extensions, over time make hair brittle, discolored, shorter, and less indicative of good health. Damaged hair is signaled as unattractive by our innate, health-seeking, senses.

Ironically, locking black hair into dreadlocks, a popularized multi-dimensioned style found in historical and present-day Africa and Eurasia, is one manner of growing tightly-curled hair into a longer style, while keeping it healthy. Contrary to misinformation, hair that is locked is washable, can be neatly styled, and must be conditioned similar to other more typical western styles, for best results. My own sister began wearing locks nearly ten years ago, after alternating between pressing and ‘perming’ for most of her adult life. Over the following years her hair has continued growing much longer than with previous ‘processed’ styles, making her more physically attractive (in my opinion).

It bears mentioning that the current pressing styles popular with black women increase the barriers to general exercise and weight management, wherein sweating counters the significant invested time and expense of hair-styling. Less exercise, in part, has the result of increasing the percentage of body fat and average weight of black women (a subject to be explored later in the series), in comparison to women without this exercise constraint.

When it comes to hair length, hair quality and attractiveness, black women may inadvertently detract from their overall physical desirability to all men, including black men, by choosing to pursue hair styles that sacrifice long-term hair length and hair quality. Black and non-black men alike seem to care most about length and quality (healthy appearance) within their similarly-wired ‘black-box’ mechanisms of what is attractive, in contrast to the belief that black women, to be more attractive, should have ‘white-looking’ hair, or vice-versa, ala Bo Derek in "10".

Friday, October 23, 2009

I was in Detroit on business and went to a restaurant for lunch. As I exited the men's room, I happened upon a slow moving old Jewish guy on his way in. I said, 'hello Mr. Sales!', whereupon he looked up at me through thick glasses and said with a perplexed view, 'do I know you?'. I said no, but that I was a big fan from way back. He got a big smile and said, 'are you sure that I don't know you, because you look familiar'. Before he continued on, he asked if I was enjoying my meal, and said that if I needed anything to let him know. I thanked him, we shook hands and parted company. Back at the table my Detroit host informed me that Soupy owned the place. From my experience, a nice guy, even without a pie in the face.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

If there was a time when men married for breast size those days are gone. Large breasts are more common each year. Nonetheless, women's breasts, along with men's chests, are still worthy of discussion.

Males have varying sensitivity to markers for female fertility, and vice versa for females. Part of gaining control and having influence on our attractiveness is in understanding which factors, and in what combinations, have the greatest influence relative to costs/risks. With this information we can then make choices of where to put our time and energy for the greatest benefit.

Breast augmentation has become number one on the cosmetic surgery hit parade. Various statistics put the annual number of procedures in the US at upwards of 300,000. It is undeniable, supported by the law of supply and demand, that those new breasts are providing direct value to the women who make this choice, not to mention the value to men. More importantly, society is increasingly accepting of technological enhancement for cosmetic benefit.

“Large breasts and narrow waists indicate high reproductive potential in women.” This is the title of a 2003 university study on the subject of female attractiveness (here). It goes on to offer that women with higher breast to under-breast ratios typically have higher levels of the sex hormone, estradiol, which promotes fertility. The correlation gives credence to the notion of factors of influence to behavior, that are increasingly within our control.

“A near-universal sexually attractive feature of a man is a v-shaped torso: a relatively narrow waist offset with broad shoulders.” Muscularity in men is viewed as attractive by women, and indicative of higher testosterone and fertility, particularly when the woman is in her fertile phase. In contrast to augmentation surgery, steroid use in men, a discretionary activity to build muscle mass, has the natural deterrent of shrinking the testicles, resulting in a host of problems including infertility.

So what about considering breasts and attraction? I did not include breasts/chests in my factors for the blog-series on black female attractive response. This does not mean they are not important, but rather that the influence is lessened by access to, and advances in, technology. While correlation to reproductive health is established, the link to overall healthiness of large breasts is questionable, significantly lessening the positive influence.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Black women have a hard way to go – no rocket science here. This is especially true in the mating, beauty, and romance arena. As a demographic, they are least likely to marry, and most likely to bear children, minus a committed male partner and supporter. The negative implications of this are obvious and significant. Black women also present a tough exterior, physically and emotionally, perhaps as a result of their difficult circumstances. But what could be driving this disparity between male attraction to black women vs. women in general? Is it biological? Is it social?

I will begin this blog-series with a personal note that my mother, sister, and former spouse of twenty years are all black. I have always found black women attractive from my earliest remembrance, but also see beauty in all ethnicities. Of overarching note, black women suffer attractiveness to all men, but most specifically to black men, who should otherwise be pre-disposed by ethnicity to lead the demand for them. The attention black men give black women can be summed up as predictably voluminous, but superficial and fleeting. At the end of the day, black men are not there for black women.

Along with greater mating disenfranchisement for black women as individuals, blacks as a group suffer this fleeting and lower male attraction, and the resulting social and economic disintegration. The loss to blacks, and society as a whole, via the failure-to-launch of the black nuclear family, is undeniable. School performance is off, unemployment soars, and crime and prison populations flourish.

As part of the series, over the coming weeks I will consider factors of attractiveness that include hair length, hair color, hip-to-waist ratio (width), body fat percentage, and education/professional attainment, as key drivers to the behavior of men, especially black men, toward black women. The goal is to close a little bit of the gap in our understanding of why black women take it on the chin, when it comes to partnering, both intra and inter-racial, and what might need to happen for a shift of results in the other direction.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

By now much has been said about the Norwegians awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. He is the first to say that he has not earned the award, and I would agree. So what were those crazy Norwegians thinking? Succinctly, they were saying to the US citizenry that their Norwegian fears matter. And not just Norway, but the rest of the world too.

The people way up north, where it is dark half the time, have not forgotten the fear forced upon them in eight years of free world with George Bush, and “Dr. Evil” Dick Cheney, at the helm. We forget in America, with the promise of each new vote, how helpless the rest of the world must feel with no lever in front of them, but only a video monitor with a volume adjustment.

Perhaps the Nobel Committee is saying, whether we care to hear or not, that before we ever get to a new destination, we must turn the ship. This course change is what the world is desperate for right now. We need to talk to the Muslims, badly wanting peace, and ready to fight at the same time. We must disarm our weapons to a level that matches our ability to control them. We must care about polluting humanity into extinction. And this is just for starters.

I frankly don’t know how much of what the world cares about will get accomplished under Obama. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, and mistakes are inevitable. But we should consider that the Norwegians did not get to vote for change last November, even though they, and much of world, were just as desperate for it as Americans. And while they have made his job a bit more difficult in their premature recognition, it is unfair to deny them, with yesterday’s fears in hand, their right to be heard, today. Tomorrow is promised to no one.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Now my kids have never said this to me, but it would not be unreasonable, considering what we hear and see about the continent, from every media outlet and periodical around every corner. I certainly wondered this growing up. Just recently, the United Nations Development Programme came out (here) with their annual rankings of the best countries to call home, and, as usual, Africa contains nearly all the bottom spots of the list, based on life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment, and gross domestic product (GDP).

So the question is, why is Africa lagging compared to everybody else? Is it because black people are poor leaders and followers, or is it because capitalist/colonialist whites came in and messed everything up? Well I say it is neither. The fact is that Africa was shackled about the wrists and ankles from the start, long before whites ever returned to exploit their birthplace. The last millennium (1,000 years) of brain-drain of the continent has left if without the legions of problem-solvers needed to pull out of the power-dive which holds it on the bottom.

Let’s face it, when we look at Africa we are looking at the only continent that sits almost entirely within the globe’s tropical/non-temperate zone, minus a central place for large scale food production, or agricultural raw materials, including domesticate-able animals. Then add in malaria, perhaps the oldest and most killing disease that has ever existed (p.falciparum), and we see that Africa is, and has been for all of humanity’s time, the world’s number one locale to be ‘from’. This status has lead nearly every African ever born, with an IQ above 85 (their post-brain-drain mean), to use those brain cells to get out and never look back.

So Africans, from the beginning of time before, after, and during the slave trade, have been leaving the continent for good reason, having nothing to do with blackness or whiteness, but rather that it is just too difficult to make the geography do more than barely sustain life. Sure, we can return with the protection and comfort of technology, but that expensive technology was created elsewhere, and most of us could not go there without it and expect to survive.

The story of why Africa is where it remains is really that simple. The hard question is what to do about this, if anything. Exactly, how do we help this place and people? I’m not sure. But I am sure that immigration was invented there, and from the beginning of time it has been about the search for a better place. For humanity, of a thousand years ago, it was a necessity to leave Africa to find places that could better sustain life, and this is no different today. But what we must also not ignore is that the plight of Africa is not a failure of the people, then or now, but rather the place.

Monday, October 05, 2009

I wondered why I had not heard from the D.A. regarding a court date for Little Miss Suzie Q, who, if you recall, put a bullet through the wall into my quarters (living, not hind) a few weeks ago (here). Well, there’s a good reason for the silence – Suzie did a 'Bonnie' (pictured) and is ‘on the lam’, as crime professionals are want to say, meaning she skipped-out on whatever bail terms were set and is nowhere to be found.

More accurately, from my neighbor who owned the gun, the 20 year-old Suzie gave the Oakland Police a fictitious name from the get-go, and managed to get cut-loose from the pokey before the authorities realized her face, name, and fingerprints did not match. It seems that she has a previous warrant for her arrest on an unrelated charge, and she wanted to avoid confusing past illegalities with fresh and new stuff. I can’t help but wonder if the OPD let their guard down a little on Suzie, because they just don’t get too many Brady-Bunch outlaws.

In any event, Suzie has now made a bad situation worse, by lying and jumping bail. Until she is caught, she will live everyday as though it is the day before she goes to jail for a good while. Remember, negligent discharge of a firearm carries a minimum jail term of not less than six months and not more than one year. So if you tack on some time for her prior offense (whatever that is), and a little more for being a naughty girl, she’s now looking at a year-plus time in the slammer.

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